1. Master’s Group Session #3 April 12, 2018
As usual, you should have this slide showing on the screen as group members arrive. Use the arrival time as greeting and catch-up time with group members.

2. Agenda 8:45 Arrival, breakfast and fellowship
April 12, 2018
Agenda
8:45 Arrival, breakfast and fellowship
9:00 Koinonia Connection and Hand of the Lord
10:00 Personal Mission Development
11:00 Leadership and the Value of Prioritized Time
12:00 Lunch
12:30 GPS
2:15 Wrap up / Debrief the day / Admin stuff
2:30 Adjournment
The two content elements that are new this session are ‘Personal Mission Development’ and ‘Leadership and the Value of Prioritized Time’. The theme that ties these components together is clarity about what is most important to us can and should result in intentionality about how we use our time. The ability to get these things right is one of the major factors that separates great leaders from commonplace leaders.

3. Koinonia Connection X X Information + Feelings Information Only
PAST Here is something about my past that would help you know me better
DEFINING A difficult life experience which helped me MOMENT grow as a person was..
VALUES Here’s what I stand for…
To kick off the theme of the day and help the group members get to know each other a little better, ask each to respond to the following question: “When you were in high school or college, who is one person that took the time and interest to invest in your growth and development as a person?” Follow up with this second question: “In whom are you currently investing yourself in a similar way?”

4. April 12, 2018
Hand of the Lord
Take some time to dig into a passage of Scripture today. You may use something that has been particularly meaningful to you recently. One that has become challenging to me over the past few years is John 17: It’s a great passage to initiate a conversation about the value and expectation that unity among the believers should be a (the?) key way that non-believers will know that God loves them. Could this include unity among the churches in a community??? Have fun with that one in your group. You might end with some prayer for community transformation that starts with unity among the believers and churches.

5. April 12, 2018
Personal Mission
Clarity about Personal Life Mission is essential for focused leadership
Do you have a written Life Mission statement?
Today we’re going to take a look at the importance and process of being clear about what is central/core to each group member in terms of Personal Mission. Lack of clarity about Personal Mission sets us up to always be reacting to other people’s expectations and agendas. If a leader spends the bulk of his/her time in ‘react mode’ the organization is doomed to meander and seem directionless. Even worse, the leader will wake up one day and realize that his/her dreams/sense of calling/passion have somehow been lost along the way.
Ask the group if anyone personally knows anyone to whom this loss of dreams/sense of calling/passion has happened. Have one or two quickly tell the story.
Ask the group if they have written ‘Life Mission’ statements. Today we’re going to take some time to work on these for those who do not yet have them. For those who do, this will be a great time to fine tune and focus their own.

6. April 12, 2018
Take a look at the partially filled out “Personal Mission Worksheet” on the PPT (you can make copies of these and hand them out as well). Identify the different components of the worksheet. The top box is the space for your overall statement of life mission. The middle section lists the ‘Key Life Appetites’ and gives space for a mission statement in each (note that these are the same areas identified on the ‘Balance Wheel’ we used in Session #1). The blue space to the right is space to identify goals for this year that will move people toward realization of their ‘Life Appetites Missions’. The bottom left box is a place to identify habits that need to be added if these Missions are going to stay in focus and on track. The ‘Obstacles’ box is a place to list things that potentially can get in the way of staying on Mission and the ‘Solutions’ box is a place for potential fixes for the obstacles.

7. April 12, 2018
How to get started
Take a look at the ‘Writing a personal mission statement’ document
Take 10 minutes to begin writing your own Life Mission Statement
Hand out the ‘Writing a personal mission statement’ document and let people read through it. Hand out blank copies of the ‘Personal Mission Worksheet’ and give people minutes to work on their own ‘Life Mission Statement’.

8. Work on the rest this month.
April 12, 2018
Next, choose two of the ‘Key Life Appetites’ and write mission statements for those.
Work on the rest this month.
Have each group member pick two of the ‘Key Life Appetite’ areas (ideally these might be the areas that needed the most work on the Life Balance Wheel exercise) and work on Mission statements for each of those two. The objective today is to get everyone started on this process with the expectation that they will complete the worksheet on their own time during the next month. This is obviously content for your individual coaching conversations in the months ahead.

9. Leadership and the Value of Prioritized time
April 12, 2018
Leadership and the Value of Prioritized time
“Give one example of something or someone that ‘robbed time’ from you last week.”
Introduction: Tell the group that the focus of conversation is going to shift slightly to the issue of prioritizing our use of time as leaders. This is a natural progression from the ‘Mission’ conversation we’ve just been having because clarity about Mission gives guidance for what our time should be used. However, too many leaders don’t connect these two factors and consequently get frustrated about lack of progress toward the things they know internally are deeply important to them.
Ask the group members to respond to “Give one example of something or someone that ‘robbed time’ from you last week.”

10. Margin: Understanding it Developing it
April 12, 2018
Margin: Understanding it Developing it
The recommended resource on this topic is the book, Margin, How to Create the Emotional, Physical, Financial and Time Reserves You Need, by Richard A. Swenson, M.D. It’s not necessary to read the book for this session’s discussion but it’s a really helpful book and is worth recommending to the group members. The basic point of the book is that the press of modern life is constantly demanding greater and greater percentages of our available time, money, energy and sanity. At the same time, health demands that we have enough margin in our lives to make space for the unexpected hits, downturns, surprise events as well as taking advantage of great opportunities. Just like book pages need white space around the edges and traffic lanes need to be wide enough for a little drift, our lives need margin as well. “Margin is the space that once existed between ourselves and our limits. It’s something held in reserve for contingencies or unanticipated situations. It’s the gap between rest and exhaustion, between breathing freely and suffocating. It is the leeway we once had between ourselves and our limits.”

11. What happens when it’s missing?
April 12, 2018
What is margin?
Is it Biblical?
Why is it necessary?
What happens when it’s missing?
What is margin?
Is it Biblical? (give examples…like Jesus getting away from the crowd to pray)
Why is it necessary? (financial margin is a good example here)
What happens when it’s missing?

12. How do culture and church culture impact margin?
April 12, 2018
How do culture and church culture impact margin?
What’s the impact of our own ‘tapes’ on margin?
What’s the impact on others when a leader is margin-less?
How do culture and specifically church culture impact margin? That is—how do they contribute to marginless life?
What’s the impact of our own ‘tapes’ on margin? (That is—what internal expectations do you carry around internally that contribute to marginless living?)
What’s the impact on others when a leader is marginless? (That is—when you as a leader live with little or no margin in your life, how does that affect those who are following you?)

13. Developing Margin Sabbath… describe your current practice
April 12, 2018
Developing Margin
Sabbath… describe your current practice
Rocks/ Pebbles/ Sand… do the most important things get priority time?
80/20 Principle… get rid of the least productive activities
Sabbath…describe your current practice. (Ask the group members to describe what they do to “rest” in God’s presence. It’s all too easy in pastoral ministry to slip into the habit of thinking that preparing to preach and attending/leading worship services is the same as Sabbath. Talk about the difference and share practices that promote meaningful Sabbath.)
Rocks/Pebbles/Sand…do the most important things get priority time? (This is the well-worn, and sometimes misinterpreted, story about the professor who gave each student in the class a glass jar and one pile each of sand, pebbles and larger rocks. He instructed the students to get as much of the three components into their respective glass jars as possible. The students who succeeded were the ones who put the large rocks in first, then the smaller pebbles and finally the smallest particles…sand. The point of the story is NOT that we should try to squeeze everything possible into our lives! The point IS that the MOST IMPORTANT things have to take priority or they won’t even get in!! Ask the group members to share an experience they’ve had recently of an important component of their lives getting squeezed out by less important tasks.

14. April 12, 2018
80/20 Principle…get rid of the least productive activities. (The recommended resource here is, The 80/20 Principle, The Secret to Success by Achieving More with Less, by Richard Koch. The basic principle is that in reality, 20% of our time accounts for 80% of the work we accomplish. The key is to identify which 20% is the most productive activity and figure out how to increase and get better at that particular activity. The corollary, of course, is that 80% of my time is spent on low producing activity. If I can identify specific activities that are low producing and delegate those to others [or just STOP doing them], I can use that time to focus on the high producing activity. Ask each group member to identify at least one low-producing activity that they would like to off-load this next month so that they can focus better on a high-producing activity.)

15. The “Perfect Week” Time use categories: In = in ministry “production”
April 12, 2018
The “Perfect Week”
Time use categories:
In = in ministry “production”
On = on ministry (strategy/planning)
Off = personal life
Open = available for others
Growth = development
The idea here is to translate the Sabbath, ‘Rock/Pebbles/Sand’ and 80/20 Principle concepts into the reality of a work week schedule. Go over the ‘Time use categories’ and then hand out the example Perfect Week sheet along with a blank Perfect Week sheet. After laughing about all the blank space on the example (!!), ask the group members to write in their most important activities in the ideal spaces in terms of their individual high-productivity times. For now, they can leave the low productivity stuff out all together. For instance, my best proactive/creative time is early in the day. I like to block out three mornings each week until 10:00 for creative, proactive work. I also push people meetings to the afternoon because that is a less creative time for me.
Have the group share their calendar ideas with each other after a few minutes.

16. April 12, 2018
The Perfect Week Worksheet Sample Calendar

17. April 12, 2018
The Perfect Week Worksheet Blank Calendar

18. Growing Past Stress April 12, 2018
See the “Growing Past Stress Instructions” document for a step by step description of how this process works.

21. April 12, 2018